catholichodler on Nostr: Friday 29 March 2024 Good Friday Spiritual Reading Your Second Reading from the ...
Friday 29 March 2024
Good Friday
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Good Friday
From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ's blood
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.
If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.
“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.
Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.
________
Revelations of Divine Love
Julian of Norwich
6. On prayer (1)
“The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need”
This Showing was made to teach our soul wisely to cleave to the Goodness of God.
And in that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind: how we use for lack of understanding and knowing of Love, to take many means whereby to beseech Him.
Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God, and more very delight, that we faithfully pray to Himself of His Goodness and cleave thereunto by His Grace, with true understanding, and steadfast by love, than if we took all the means that heart can think. For if we took all these means, it is too little, and not full worship to God: but in His Goodness is all the whole, and in it there faileth nought.
For this, as I shall tell, came to my mind in the same time:
We pray to God for the sake of His holy flesh and His precious blood, His holy Passion, His precious death and wounds: and all the blessed nature, the endless life that we have of all this, is His Goodness.
And we pray Him for the sake of His sweet Mother’s love that bore Him; and all the help we have of her is of His Goodness.
And we pray by His holy Cross that he died on; and all the virtue and the help that we have of the Cross, it is of His Goodness.
And in the same wise, all the help that we have of special saints and all the blessed Company of Heaven, the precious love and endless friendship that we have of them, it is of His Goodness.
For God of His Goodness hath ordained means to help us, full fair and many: of which the chief and principal mean is the blessed nature that He took of the Maid, with all the means that go afore and come after with regard to our redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship through means, yet understanding that He is the Goodness of all.
Continued…
________
Good Friday
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Good Friday
From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ's blood
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.
If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.
“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.
Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.
________
Revelations of Divine Love
Julian of Norwich
6. On prayer (1)
“The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need”
This Showing was made to teach our soul wisely to cleave to the Goodness of God.
And in that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind: how we use for lack of understanding and knowing of Love, to take many means whereby to beseech Him.
Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God, and more very delight, that we faithfully pray to Himself of His Goodness and cleave thereunto by His Grace, with true understanding, and steadfast by love, than if we took all the means that heart can think. For if we took all these means, it is too little, and not full worship to God: but in His Goodness is all the whole, and in it there faileth nought.
For this, as I shall tell, came to my mind in the same time:
We pray to God for the sake of His holy flesh and His precious blood, His holy Passion, His precious death and wounds: and all the blessed nature, the endless life that we have of all this, is His Goodness.
And we pray Him for the sake of His sweet Mother’s love that bore Him; and all the help we have of her is of His Goodness.
And we pray by His holy Cross that he died on; and all the virtue and the help that we have of the Cross, it is of His Goodness.
And in the same wise, all the help that we have of special saints and all the blessed Company of Heaven, the precious love and endless friendship that we have of them, it is of His Goodness.
For God of His Goodness hath ordained means to help us, full fair and many: of which the chief and principal mean is the blessed nature that He took of the Maid, with all the means that go afore and come after with regard to our redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship through means, yet understanding that He is the Goodness of all.
Continued…
________